Man City can emulate Arsenal's style - Ireland

The Swede's £40million spending spree has seen players bought from across the
globe by City, but 20-year-old midfielder Ireland has been stunned by how
quickly they have gelled.

Ireland said: 'We are a flair kind of team now, we have a lot of attacking
players, a lot of Brazilians and perhaps we can become like an Arsenal.

'At times last year I was afraid to express myself but the way the manager
speaks to you man to man is excellent, he's a good team talker and everyone
responds to him.'

City entertain Derby tonight for their first home Barclays Premier League game
under Eriksson with expectations already soaring following their 2-0 dismissal
of West Ham on the opening day of the season.

But Eriksson said: 'We have to take it easy and not start talking about the
big four. When the squad is complete then I will put a target to the players.

'We played very good football for large parts of the 90 minutes against West
Ham and I was surprised by that because the new players did it so quickly - but
Derby will be a new challenge.'

The first task for Eriksson's side is to remove the stigma of not having
scored a league goal in the City of Manchester Stadium since New Year's Day.

The City manager added: 'It's a long time and we will try to play good
football but we cannot guarantee anything.

'That is our target and we have been working very hard on that, but in
football you have to defend as well.'

Eriksson, who is still searching for a new goalkeeper, may be tempted to
tinker with his starting line-up to make space for two strikers and change the
4-5-1 winning formula he used at West Ham.

Bulgarian striker Valeri Bojinov is the most likely change, replacing Michael
Johnson, but Emile Mpenza came through a reserves match last night after
recovering from a hamstring problem and is also in contention.